On Friday night, late into the South Orange-Maplewood school board public meeting, the board voted 6-3 to place Superintendent Ronald Taylor on administrative leave until his contract expires on June  30, 2024. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Kevin Gilbert, previously South Orange-Maplewood School District’s Assistant Superintendent of Access & Equity. This decision follows votes of no-confidence in Taylor from the local teachers union and the Black Parents Workshop (BPW), which in 2018 sued the district in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey alleging violations in state and federal civil rights laws by the South Orange-Maplewood School District (SOMA) resulting in discriminatory practices against African-American students. The 2018 suit was preceded by one in 2014 by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Jersey, and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, which charged that the district’s tracking and discipline practices disproportionately confines students of color to lower-level classes and disproportionately disciplines students of color and students with disabilities.

The board meeting was described by a resident as “extraordinarily contentious.” It follows the October 18th meeting where teachers and parents demanded the Board not renew Taylor’s contract because “he wasn’t a good fit for the district,” especially after an equity report found  “much more needs to be done to accomplish the district’s goal of equality.”

Earlier on Friday, Taylor, who is Black, had sent an email to the entire community noting the “divisive climate” within the district and claiming there is “more destructive misinformation than constructive conversations.” Also at the Board meeting, Taylor gave a presentation defending his record and, according to the Village Green (paywalled), threatening a lawsuit due to the board president’s “micromanagement, irregular behavior, and perceived policing of him that was racially motivated.”  

What the heck is going on in SOMA? 

It depends upon whom you ask.

Let’s start with the families. 

According to the New Jersey Department of Education database, there is a 39 point achievement gap between white and Black students in both reading and math. (Statewide it’s 26 points.) While 76% of white students at Columbia High School are enrolled in at least one AP class, only 28% of Black students are. Ninety-five percent of white students graduate high school in four years; only 83% of Black students do. An equity report from Dr. Eddie Fergus of the Rutgers University Equity Lab found that “Black students were consistently 80 to 90% more likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability. White students were between 40 to 50% less likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability.”

After the board vote the BPW issued the following statement:

“We applaud the Board’s decision. Dr. Taylor was ineffective and complicit in the delay of the District in complying with the settlement agreement with the Black Parents Workshop. BPW was concerned with his leadership abilities from the time we deposed him as part of our federal lawsuit.”

In an interview today, BPW President James Davis said Workshop members had ongoing concerns about Taylor’s “lack of commitment” to meeting the equity benchmarks laid out in the settlement and the Fergus report.

How about teachers?

Members of the SOMA Education Association, who have been vocal at recent public meetings, say in their formal resolution of no-confidence that Taylor has overseen a district that has lost the trust of stakeholders through an “autocratic exercise of power.” He, they allege, has de-leveled courses without adequate preparation (eliminated honors and advanced tracks of study, despite an experiment in de-leveling a discrete math course at Columbia High School that led to lower levels of proficiency among all learners); outsourced transportation leading to chaotic pick-ups and drop-offs; mismanaged the Intentional Integration Initiative (a result of the Black Parents Workshop lawsuit–chronology here) and forced Black students to travel to non-neighborhood schools; failed to address the staggering achievement gaps; failed to properly staff special education classes or pay teachers for working extra hours; is responsible for  a downgrade of rigor throughout the district, including letting students recover credits by sitting in the library unsupervised; and ignored the deterioration of buildings, leading to health problems among staff and students.

School board members say Taylor’s presentation of his record at the board meeting—he requested it be held in public—only solidified their antipathy, especially after he shared emails from school board members that he claimed were racist. 

Community members also say Taylor neglected to ensure buildings were safe when students and staff returned after COVID school closures, acted imperiously by claiming he didn’t need board approval to eliminate math courses at the middle and high schools, was dismissive about the Black Parents Workshop settlement, and was insensitive to antisemitism.

Other residents, including Mayor Dean Dafis, support Taylor, although they appear to be in the minority. Taylor was originally hired in 2019, midway through his contract as Willingboro’s superintendent. His salary this year is $230,572.

How did SOMA  get here? After all, this is a district where 76% of the average property tax bill—$20,000 or so—goes to fund the school district . The New York Times describes the milieu as a “haven of diversity and progressiveness” where lampposts are adorned with signs that say “Stigma-free Town” and “Hate Has No Home Here.”

One could assume SOMA is accustomed to controversy. In 2021 a group of parents sued the district for not reopening schools despite low Covid-19 infection rates. At the same time the district accused the local union of “bad faith” for refusing to return to non-remote classes. In 2022 a teacher was suspended after she was accused of pulling off the hijab of a second-grader; the incident went viral after an Olympic fencer put it on Instagram, Gov. Murphy tweeted about it, the teacher received death threats, and the mother of the second-grader issued anti-semitic statements. That same year parents lobbied for the district to fully staff special education classes and accused it of violating IEP’s.  Last April a special education teacher held a four-year-old with autism upside-down and shook him. Last month Taylor canceled Halloween due to “concerns over equity, access, and student dignity,” which got the Governor’s attention:

Halloween 🤝 @GovMurphy https://t.co/tLUX2ic2a7

— New Jersey (@NJGov) October 25, 2023

Worth noting: the district has churned through five superintendents (three permanent, two interim) in the last decade. And And just today a SOMA teacher started a change.org petition demanding that the board restrain the public from verbally harassing teachers.

Yet this isn’t about grown-ups: as Davis said, the BPW’s activism is about children. In a district marked by privilege, six out of ten Black third-graders can’t read on grade-level, a benchmark for future academic success, while 72% of white third-graders can. It’s nothing in the water. It’s in the system.

More to come on this developing story.